Browsed by
Category: Uncategorized

Friday Favs – The Busiest Week!

Friday Favs – The Busiest Week!

Comments 0 Comment

Happy Friday, friends! It’s been such a busy week here! I missed posting last Friday because I had a job interview. After an 8 year break from the hospitality industry, I’m working front desk part time again! I’m still writing, but the rollercoaster of freelance income has been so stressful lately that I realized that getting a “normal person job” a couple of days a week would save me SO much financial worry. Today is my third day of training, so still a lot to learn. A lot of it is the same no matter where you work, it’s mostly a matter of learning a new computer system and that particular hotel’s way of doing things. Having an income I can count on and plan around is going to be such a nice change!

If you missed it, I posted last week about my visit to Fantastic Caverns in Springfield, MO. I’d love for you to check out the post!

 

 

1. As you probably know if you read my Friday posts, I started taking English riding lessons last November. I still love it (although I haven’t had the time or money for them this summer, which I’ve been kinda ok with since it has been a million degrees), but oh man do I miss riding Western sometimes! I’ve been craving a good trail ride so I freaked out when I found Pot A Gold Stables on Instagram a few weeks ago. They’re brand new to the Branson area (opened just a few months ago) and I’ll be writing a whole post about them soon, but there’s no way I could do a weekly favorites post without mentioning the nicest part of my week! The scenery was gorgeous, the horses were great, we saw tons of deer, and just getting to go on a relaxing trail ride instead of working my bootie off in lessons was such a nice break! Big thumbs up! I’d love to go back for one of their sunset rides sometime – if the ride was that pretty in the middle of the afternoon, can you imagine golden hour light and sunset views? It must be beautiful! (As I’ll also mention when I do my full post, they did hook me up with a complimentary ride in exchange for spreading the word, but including them in this post is entirely just because I had such a great time!)

 

2. I usually buy gallon jugs of spring water since I go through it so quickly, but it looks a little weird to lug a big jug around with you. I found this cute water bottle at Dollar Tree last week, which yes, means it was $1! It holds quite a bit of water – more than a standard water bottle but not quite a liter, I think. Love having a better option than just re-using my single use plastic bottles!

 

3. Can we take a moment to appreciate how great Captain Kitten is at modeling the products we get to review for the Chewy Influencer program?

That tongue! He knows what happens when he’s done modeling: time to sample the food for reviews!

This month, Chewy was kind enough to send us a variety pack of the Science Diet Adult Savory Entree wet cat food. The description says the food is minced, but it’s really more of a super moist, nice quality pate. Our variety pack had three flavors: Turkey, Chicken, and Turkey & Liver. As usual, most of the cats were down for anything, but Tennyson – the pickiest of eaters – wan’t into the turkey flavor. (Turkey & Liver was gobbled up, but plain turkey just wasn’t his thing. Cats are weird.)

 

I’ve worked with Hills a few times outside of the Chewy review program, and I’m always so impressed by them. They make high quality food that my cats love, and they give back to animal shelters. Gotta love that! This particular food is made in the USA from natural ingredients, and enhanced with vitamins, minerals, and amino acids for a healthy kitty. It’s also designed to support their metabolism and maintain a healthy weight. Chewy also sells 24-packs of the individual flavors that are included, so I’d suggest starting with a 12 can variety pack to see what your cats like the most, and then if one flavor is a clear winner, you can order multi-packs of just that one, and if they like all three equally you can stick with variety packs to keep their dinner routine interesting.

 

 

4. I stopped by Bath & Body Works last week to redeem one of the free mini product coupons they send out every few months, and freaked out over how cute all of their new Halloween stuff is! The temptation to buy everything with a black cat on it (and every fall-scented candle they had) was huge, but I held off for now. There’s now way I’m making it through the season without at least picking up a cute Halloween themed hand sanitizer, though.

 

 

5. Speaking of Halloween… HALLOWEEN OREOS ARE BACK. The limited edition flavors they’ve been coming out with are fine, but these are the real MVP. The package claims they taste the same as regular Oreos, but I think we all know that’s a lie. These are the best! Now please excuse me while I go eat 20 packages of these before they go away again.

 

That’s it for this week! I’m still adjusting to having a whole new work schedule and trying to fit my freelance writing and blog stuff and like, remembering to feed myself around it. Seriously looking forward to having a few days off the beginning of next week! (And now that I don’t need to write 99 hours a day, I can actually take the occasional day OFF from everything! That’s super exciting for someone who is used to going months without a totally work-free day.) Hope your weekend is fantastic!

 

Friday blog linkup

*

Friday Favs – Ten is Five!

Friday Favs – Ten is Five!

Comments 2 comments

Happy Friday, friends! Here’s what I’ve been loving this week:

 

 

1. I learned about the Potterless podcast this week and have already binge listened to like 35 episodes. (EEP.) It’s a podcast by a guy in his early 20s (he’s 23 at the beginning of the podcast but 25 by now) reading the HP series for the first time. If nothing else, I highly recommend episode 0 to Potter fans, because it’s only about 10 minutes long and he lists out everything he “knows” about the series based on memes and seeing the first few movies long ago. It’s a really fun podcast and it’s both interesting and hilarious to hear him trying to guess plot twists and get things terribly wrong.

 

2. I asked my cats to review the Fancy Feast Gourmet Naturals dry food that we got for the Chewy Influencer program this month, and I think that their review translates to “IT SMELLS SO GOOD WE COULD NOT WAIT UNTIL YOU GOT HOME.”

 

 

The Chewy box arrived just as I was about to leave the house, so I opened it to double check what was inside (I get to choose the complimentary products we review each month, but my memory is pretty terrible), and then left the house for a couple hours. I came home to the above. Clearly, the cats investigated what was in the box and were like:

 

(I haven’t used that meme in a couple years. Feels good to bring back a classic.)

Despite the original, um, enthusiasm, the food got kind of mixed reviews from the cats. They were excited about having something new at first, but most of them preferred their regular dry food if they were offered both. That said, I do love the move towards more natural and sustainable ingredients. We got the ocean whitefish flavor, since their usual favorite flavor for dry food is seafood. Now I kinda wish I’d picked the Filet Mignon and Seafood flavor, which I *almost* picked because it sounded like something they’d be into,  but I switched to Ocean Fish at the last second. Maybe next time!

 

4. I’ve had deer in my back yard multiple times a week lately. Probably because it hasn’t been mowed in a million years, but why mow when you can get your lawn professionally manicured by deer? I actually had TWO deer back there yesterday evening, but I couldn’t see them well through the trees. Still – makes me feel like a Disney princess surrounded by woodland friends.

 

5. Tennyson turns five years old tomorrow! I can’t believe I have a kindergarten aged son. (This pic is from his first birthday, but he basically hasn’t changed in appearance at all.)

 

I’m about to head to the living room for some hot vacuuming action – I know how to party on a Friday! My to-do list has been such a heavy weight on my shoulders lately that I’m hoping a couple of days of hard work will lighten the load a LOT. Speaking of shoulders, I have an appointment with a new chiropractor on Tuesday and I am SO EXCITED. This is how you know you’re old. (Well, not really, since I’ve been getting adjustments since I was 16, but still.) My whole body is so out of whack that I’m legit daydreaming about how much better I’m going to feel.

Go forth and have an awesome weekend!

 

Friday blog linkup

*

Friday Favs – August Begins

Friday Favs – August Begins

Comments 0 Comment

Happy Friday! I can’t believe it’s already August. Pumpkin spice everything is just around the corner!

Here’s what I’ve been loving this week:

 

1. Sabra has a new black bean dip that is so good! It’s not super spicy, just right.

I just ate it with tortilla chips, but I just realized how amazing it would be paired with a cheese quesadilla. I need to test this theory ASAP.

 

2. I’m getting a pretty noticeable flip flop tan line. I consider this a sign of a life well lived.

 

3. I got a new notebook! And it was 88 cents! Yassss. I’m still using the dragonfly one that’s been literally falling apart since like the third day of use, but I’m excited to switch to this one ASAP.

 

4. This article on Vulture was a fun read! Writers from Sex & the City plotted out what current-day episodes would look like, from goat yoga to #MeToo.

5. I don’t really have a #5 this week! I just finished invoicing writing clients, and I’m getting ready to head over to the thrift store where I work on Saturdays to pick up a couple of hours. Our electricity went out in the middle of the afternoon last Saturday, and it turned out that it was out for the entire town – stoplights and everything! So we wound up going home at 3:30 instead of 6:30. I’d normally just pick up extra writing work to make up for those missed hours, but it’s been a slow week for that, too! (Ok, TBH there’s been plenty available, but I’ve been sick and haven’t been able to talk myself into doing much.) A couple of hours is barely going to feel like work (hopefully), and then I get to come home and work on a post about the cave I visited earlier this week! And then soooo much sleep, because these antibiotics are kicking my butt.

Not the most exciting favorites this week unless you’re like me and get excited about hummus and a notebook.

Hope your weekend is lovely and filled with adventure!

 

Friday blog linkup

*

Friday Favs -Goodbye, July

Friday Favs -Goodbye, July

Comments 0 Comment

 

Happy Friday, friends! I’m late finishing this up (it’s almost 10 pm. on Friday, eep!) so I’m just jumping straight to my favorite things this week!

1. If ever a shirt was made for me, it’s this one:

Fount it at Kohls – it’s available online here and on sale for $10! They’re junior sizes but I’m broad shouldered and booby and the Large worked for me, so it’s not the usual teeny tiny juniors sizes.

 

2. Speaking of the meowers, they’ve been hard at work reviewing food sent to us by Chewy.com for their Chewy

Influencer Program. This week, they tried out the Victor Turkey & Salmon Dinner Canned Cat Food. I’d never heard of this brand before, but the can says they’ve been around since 1950. We got a 24-pack and most of the cats were fans. This is a pate, but it’s a little more moist than your average pate, which I think contributed to the cats liking it.

 

 

3. I spotted these on my last trip to the good Target in Springfield and grabbed them on a whim. I love Sweet Earth but it’s really hard to make a good frozen quesadilla. These are SO GOOD, though! The “meat” is vegan, but the quesadillas contain cheese so they’re actually just vegetarian. I made them on the stove instead of in the microwave, which I think made a big difference. (The package says they take 5 minutes but I definitely spent at least 10.) There are 4 other varieties but they all contain ingredients that just don’t appeal to me (SUPER bummed about the mushrooms in the Tuscan one!) I’m guessing they must be new? I’ve definitely never seen them before now, and I pay close attention to the healthy frozen stuff section.

 

4. When I got home from my thrift shop job last weekend, I set a bag of clothes I’d scored at work that day down for ONE SECOND and this happened:

 

This is why I can’t have nice things.

 

5. Best tweets this week:

 

 

Have a fantastic weekend!

 

Friday blog linkup

 

 

 

 

 

*

Back to the Lake

Back to the Lake

Comments 0 Comment

If you follow me on Instagram, or even read my blog occasionally, you know I go down to the lake several nights a week to relax by the water. It’s only like a two-minute drive and it’s amazing for clearing my head. After a day behind the computer, the fresh air and long walks are magical.

Except, as you probably heard, last week my lake killed a bunch of people. (Link is to a recent CNN story, but there are a billion out there.)

I still have way more questions than answers about the whole thing. It seems like literally everything that could go wrong did.

The area where it happened is about a half hour drive from me, but only a few miles if you measure straight across the lake. Everyone in my town seemed to know the storm was coming. I woke up from a nap and saw the storm warning so I made a quick run to the store for cat food before it hit. I almost snapped a photo of the massive black clouds rolling on, since they were juxtaposed against glowing sun and fluffy white clouds. At the store, the radio was broadcasting the storm warning. A tourist asked if that was for our area. Yup. As I was leaving, another woman came into the store and told the cashier he should bring in the outdoor clearance items ASAP because a big storm was coming. I got home and fed the cats, and then had a call from my mom freaking out about this big storm coming in. Moral of this paragraph: It was a crazy storm and way more intense than expected in some areas, but everyone KNEW it was coming.

 

I’ve posted about these weird storms several times this summer.

 

A few minutes into it, I tried to check the radar on my phone but I have the worst internet everrrrr, so it wouldn’t load. After many tries I gave up and pulled up my county fire department’s Twitter – I can always tell how bad a storm is by how many incidents they’re responding to. Instead of the usual trees and power lines down, I saw this:

 

 

After sending that screencap to a friend with a  note that storms usually don’t freak me out but this one was a little eerie, I went over to their Facebook after the storm cleared up to see if there was more info, and saw that they had clarified that the Belle wasn’t involved. (And yes, if that sounds familiar, I just posted about the Branson Belle a few weeks ago.) After a bit, other Facebook users began posting that they heard one of the Duck boats was involved. It wasn’t long before the FD referred to it as a MCI – mass casualty event. (I clearly remember that because someone posted a reply saying that they hoped everyone was ok, and it took ALL of my willpower not to point out that if it was being called a MCI that um, no, NOT everyone was ok. By far.)

I’ve been through all kinds of feels this week because this literally hits so close to home. Not just geographically, but like, I do the hiking trail that passes through the Branson Belle parking lot fairly often, so I KNOW how close to the sinking site that there are boat ramps where they could have driven out. I have walked down them to the water. It’s close to home in the sense that I got a sudden, super strong headache when the air pressure changed as the storm hit, and it lasted from Thursday night until Sunday. It’s close to home in the sense that I was so, so, so thankful when all of the bodies were recovered not just for the obvious reason of closure for the families, but because I know that there was no way I could go back to sitting with my feet in the water when there was a literal possibility of someone washing up next to me.

This is probably an unpopular opinion, but I hated the “Branson Strong” images that started popping up on social media the next day, because I associate that kind of phrase with terrorist attacks. I was home in Orlando when Pulse happened. What happened on my lake was a horrible tragedy that almost definitely could have been prevented, but it is NOT the same as a single human choosing to devastate your entire city. They’re just entirely different kinds of awful.

Last night, though, I finally hit the point where I needed to go back. I NEED the fresh air and the sound of gentle waves and the little turtle heads popping up out of the water. Not taking those walks to decompress at the end of the day was really messing with my mental health. I’ve been waking up from lake nightmares unable to breathe.

 

 

I took my notebook and my bottled water with me as usual, but I ended up just sitting down by the water feeling all of the sadness until it started getting dark. I think I actually asked the lake, “Seventeen people?” at one point, as if I was accusing it, as if it was a beloved pet who had accidentally been incredibly destructive.

I went back tonight, walked around for awhile, sat by the water until it was almost dark again. It’s almost meditative.

 

 

For the record, I’m not trying to be like “Oh poor me, I lost my evening relaxation place” when a bunch of people lost their lives. I just wanted to share a bit of the weird way that an event like this affects people in the local area, even when they aren’t personally involved. It still *feels* personal. I feel absolutely horrible for the people who were on board the Branson Belle and watched it all happen. I can’t imagine seeing people in that kind of peril and knowing you can’t do anything to help. I feel bad for the teenage girl who survived who keeps being told in interviews that she’s meant for great things, because holy crap is that a lot of pressure to put on a young girl. I feel bad for the Belle employee who pulled at least two people from the water who didn’t make it. I can’t imagine how it haunts him. I feel bad for the hospital staff – I’ve been to that ER a few times and it’s always crazy. They’re so not equipped to deal with a sudden rush of people in critical condition, not to mention all of the extra press around.

I try not to get stuck in the loop of “What if?” What if ONE passenger had stood up when the water started getting choppy and put on a life vest, even though they’d been told they wouldn’t need them. Would others have followed? What if they had tried to head in two minutes sooner? (Under normal lake conditions, they could have made it to one of the boat ramps in 1-2 minutes max.) What if that family of 11 had gotten stuck in traffic and missed that particular boat? What if this had happened when I went on the Ducks as a kid? My mom is afraid of water and I remember her being nervous the whole time, so it was probably me who talked her into going. Is someone feeling guilty about dragging a nervous family member along on last week’s fateful trip? There are a million tiny details that can suck you into that rabbit hole of realizing how many decisions we make in a day that add up to big things.

Sorry that this is more of a stream of consciousness than a carefully crafted narrative, but my mind is still in a weird place.  I’d be curious to hear from you guys if you’ve ever been through something similar – the weird feeling when your community is shaken by something that doesn’t directly involve you?